Fraudulent transactions on cc help with reimbursement

puppinski

Hi guys

Firstly thanks to Paul Varjak for suggesting I start a new thread with this query.

Unfotunately I need to give you the full background to get someone's advice on this one.

Whilst talking with my 92yr old father in July he mentioned that he had noticed several 'rogue' transactions on his Tesco Mastercard statement. I asked to look at it and realised that they did indeed look rather dodgy, comprising of payments to mainly strange webaddressess in a variety of currencies such as euros and dollars all for amounts of mainly around £20 to £30. I asked to see previous statements and to my horror these payments stretched back as far as he had statements at that time for which was to 2007.

I also noticed that Tesco had issued a new card in Dec 07 and in the months prior to this there had been numerous rogue transactions that were listed on his statement which he did not recognised but had just settled.

In fact in October 08 my father had called Tesco about rogue transactions that had appeared and they had credited some transactions back for that period and issued another card.

However it appears despite a new card these rogue transactions reappeared and unfortunately my father did not query them. I know this sounds strange but you firstly need to bear in mind he is 92 years of age and unfortunately his short term memory is not brilliant and simply assumed that if it appeared on his statement it must be his fault - he does not really appreciate how people can use your credit card details without having your card.

I wrote and complained to Tesco and what I don't understand is the following. They sent us statements going back to 2001 and asked us to identify rogue transactions which we did. (I was horrified that they totalled near £3000 which my father had continued to pay over a period of years from July 2004.) We waited over a month to then get a reply saying that they could not refund any of the transactions due to the fact that my father should have reported there appearance sooner - they quoted Mastercard rules at us. Why did they send us statements gong back to 2001 then if they could not look at transactions further back than 4 months.
Now whilst I completely and utterly appreciate that individuals have a duty of care to take responsibility for monitoring their account and that legally Tesco have the upper hand but surely Tesco Mastercard has a duty of care to their customers especially when having changed his card after reporting fraud it continues to reocccur! Am I barking up the wrong tree or does this suggest an inside job? And surely when new card are issued an individual looking at the transactions on a database would pick up the hundreds of very strange transactions even without bearing in mind his age.
I feel incredibly frustrated at Tescos response especially as he is vulnerable consumer. I just wondered could anybody out there suggest a different legal approach that I could throw at Tesco to get some sort of refund for my Dad? Anybody's thoughts would be very, very gratefully recieved!! Fingers Crossed.

Moggles_2

This underlines how vulnerable elderly people with memory loss are.

Which national daily newspaper do you read? I'd send a letter/e-mail to its consumer advice column (name & address can be withheld, if your father would prefer this) and you might find Tesco moves quite quickly.

Very often, publicity is your best weapon in a situation like this.